this is what makes life divine

I had an odd conversation with a friend about love over the weekend.

Me: "But why aren't you out there trying to find someone to fall in love with?"
Mr. Friend: "I'm not sure I even want that"
Me (thoroughly confused): "What?"
Mr. Friend (patiently): "There are plenty of guys who have gone on being bachelors forever. That life is just easier."
Me: "But don't you want to be in love?"
Mr. Friend: "I've never really wanted it."
Me: "Because you've never experienced it?"
Mr. Friend: "yeah, i guess."

To some people, this might not be strange. To me, it was like two squares talking about possibly never wanting or needing a square shaped hole to fit in. (Wow, totally sounded naughty but not going there, we're talking about love peoples) I realized an extraordinarily long time ago that I was addicted to falling in love, being in love, searching for love. Its just one of those odd things I found intoxicating and easy to do, like Bejeweled 2 on yahoo games (the downfall of my anti-procrastination efforts). Being in love has the same nasty effect on me that buying something on Ebay does: giddy satisfaction. But this newfangled idea from one of my best friends was shocking to my system: no hope for romantic love? It consumes my thoughts and guides my actions, because it is the goal at which I aim with every inch of my existence. And for him, this doesn't matter at all. It sounds like the classic shock kids brought up in Christian homes face when they meet the aetheist's kid for the first time: how can something you've always known to be true, right, and worth pursuing over everything, mean nothing or even be a nasty thought in someone elses mind? Something tells me that he'll find someone amazing, that is the perfect fit in his life, and he'll see the value of loving her, and wonder what he did without it.

And then again why do I have to be right? Maybe my addiction is really that: something harmful that eats away at all other aspects of my life. True I haven't been single since the beginning of 8th grade (a good 5 years back), but why would i want to be single? I know plenty of people who would argue independance, freedom, less turmoil in life, but i really don't crave any of those things, because they exist while out of a relationship just as they do in it, just with a slightly different spin on them. Detremental as my addiction is, the worst of it probably comes with the fact that I hang on to relationships longer than I should, even when all the happiness has been sucked out and the only good that is left is shallow and hungry. The fear of being out of love, the possibility that I'd be giving up the one I'm supposed to be with, as well as the thought that I might not find one better, cripple me. Current circumstances prove to be challenging in this way, and the 2 year relationship with a boy that once resembled all my happiness is hanging on my love of love, not my good sense. Advice on this matter would be extremely helpful, for I am a fool in love, and a bigger fool out of it, so my addled brain can't think on this subject any longer.